2012 Woman of the Year Sharon Oeschger: 'Answer to a prayer' devotes time, energy

KAREN SMITH WELCH

Monday

Dec 31, 2012 at 8:31 PM

There's a frankness to Sharon Oeschger's brand of philanthropy.

Oeschger, 67, wastes no time explaining why she has regularly shopped for piles of clothing for homeless men, women and children served by Faith City Ministries.

"My father, as a young man, walked the streets of Amarillo looking for a job," said Oeschger, whose father, the late Jack B. Kelley, ultimately became a helium and trucking entrepreneur. "The soles of his shoes were worn to the point that he had to put cardboard in the bottom of his shoes so he could go look for a job."

The scale of Oeschger's devotion to filling Faith City's need, and any other, has left friends marveling and led the Amarillo Globe-News to name her the 2012 Woman of the Year.

Faith City's Outreach Ministry Fund had "not one penny in it," Executive Director Jena Taylor said. "We had no money to buy anything for the (Thanksgiving) guests this year. Sharon was the answer to a prayer."

Oeschger shopped a Las Vegas retail outlet for hundreds of pairs of gloves, hats, long johns and jackets to contribute "and then they (the outlet) contributed, too," Oeschger said wryly. "I talked them down."

Driving bargains fits Oeschger's career mode as president and CEO of Cryogenic Research and Development, a business her father built that leases trailers made for hauling compressed and liquefied gases. She gets questions about the company's enigmatic moniker, she said.

"I get letters from prisoners that are on death row that want to know if we'll freeze their body," she said. "I throw them away."

Combine that straightforward approach with compassion, and you get a spirit Taylor called "indomitable," an adjective meaning, "impossible to subdue or defeat."

Another word friends speak often in tandem with Oeschger's name? Commitment.

"A lot of people just write a check," said Peggy Berg, a friend of Oeschger's since 1980. "Sharon writes a check but also gives of her own time and commitment to a project."

Friend and Amarillo Area Foundation Vice President Charlotte Rhodes estimated Oeschger has "chaired or underwritten every major event in this community. And she gives generously from her heart, whether it's cooking hamburgers at San Jacinto (Elementary) School for families in the neighborhood or underwriting a performance of the Amarillo Symphony."

She spent 18 years - three terms - in elected office on the Amarillo College board of regents.

"She knew more about the college than probably any other regent," said Ellen Green, AC's communication chief. "She is extremely generous with the college. She opens her home up for, really, anything we want. We've used her hospitality for our honor students and for KACV events and for college 'friend-building,' as we call it.

"She makes it clear that that's what she's here for and that she's perfectly not only willing, but eager, to help us."

Oeschger contributed $250,000 to help launch construction of the Medical Center League House, an Amarillo Junior League hospitality house available to families of adult patients who come to Amarillo from out of town for medical services.

She has served as an honorary co-chair of the capital campaign to fund a major expansion of the Harrington Cancer Center, and she and her husband, Larry, plowed $250,000 into the effort.

"She was the logical choice to move the Harrington Cancer Center to the next generation, if you will," said Amy Juba, who coordinated the campaign, which has secured $10 million in gifts and pledges. "Just her leadership skills and insight, she has a great sense of the community and of who would be willing and likely to support the effort. She made sure fundraising efforts were always about the people, how the patients were going to be served."

Oeschger's father died of cancer, Rhodes said.

"She has been involved with the cancer center since the '80s, since the original campaign to build the center," Rhodes said, adding that Oeschger helped organize the first Circle of Friends to support the center in 1985 at the home of her mother, the late Hazel Kelley Wilson, who also was a philanthropist. The Amarillo Globe-News named Wilson the 1991 Woman of the Year.

Like her mother, Oeschger puts her faith in all gestures, great and small, friends said.

The continued provision of holiday tray favors for Meals on Wheels clients was "my mother's dying wish - literally on her death bed," said Oeschger, who has carried on the tradition.

This year, Oeschger gathered about 350 cards, small books and gifts, either small wooden crosses or lighted candles with manger scenes, she said.

"I've got to keep that up," Oeschger said. "A 96-year-old man called me and told me that was the first card he had ever received in his entire life. You just don't realize what little things can do."

The dedication of her parents to charity stirred the same in their daughter, Rhodes said.

"To me, that's a lesson in itself to all of us as parents: What we do and how we influence our children about the importance of not only being a very happy recipient in the community but also a giver," Rhodes said.

Downtown Women's Center shelter residents who work in the nonprofit's thrift stores have seen that Kelley family drive to be sure others have sustenance, Executive Director Diann Gilmore said.

"All you have to do is let (Oeschger) know you have a true need, and she finds a way to support it," Gilmore said.

The store employees, who "don't always have a real lunch," are treated to a monthly meal provided and served by Oeschger and a group from her church, Gilmore said.

Oeschger contends the care with which a charity is given sustains the soul, relating a story from her youth, when people in need approached her family home to ask for food.

"My mother never refused anybody food," Oeschger said. "My job, in those days, was to sit with them on the back porch and make sure they had what they wanted to eat and to talk to them.

"I found out the easiest way to talk to them was to ask them about their stories, where they came from, where they were going, because everybody has a story about their life."

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